When we had that rumored deal for Zucker and it was sort of in limbo. lots of Flames fans on my twitter timeline were @ing his wife being like "Calgary? Are the Zuckers coming here? Flames? Zucker to Calgary?" and while they were being friendly, you can see how this might be off putting.
There have been lots of comments by insiders this year saying UFAs don't want to play in Canada because of social media. So i don't think players care so much about metropolitan area, but more this level of uh, fervor.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1421298303501697025